Salish Sea Pilot has unveiled a new cruising guide to Washington state's San Juan Islands, with 60 pages of information and almost 80 illustrations covering the archipelago's anchorages, marinas and passages.

The 2013 edition follows in the wake of Salish Sea Pilot's popular guide to British Columbia's Gulf Islands released last year. Both guides are free downloads from salishseapilot.com.

Like the Gulf Islands edition, the San Juan Islands guide is a Portable Document Format (PDF) file that is viewable on Windows, Macintosh and Linux computers, as well as mobile devices such as Apple's iPhone and iPad, and Android phones and tablets. Users who prefer paper can print out pages — one, two or many more — to bring along on their next cruise.

Salish Sea Pilot editor Jim Burgoyne said the guides will be published annually, though two editions of each guide will be released over the course of the 2013 cruising season. This will allow for more updates in the guides' first official year and encourage boaters to upgrade the guide they have.

"The guides will be constantly updated and improved as we learn of changes," said Burgoyne. "We are a small company and hope boaters will offer suggestions about how we can improve. Heaven knows local cruisers return many times each year to the same spot and will know it much better than we do."

Burgoyne and his wife, Lynne Picard, launched Salish Sea Pilot in 2011, after he completed a 74-day solo crossing from Osaka, Japan in Quiver, their Vancouver 27. The first project for the Vancouver Island-based company was a 82-page Gulf Islands guide with more than 100 illustrations of anchorages and marinas.

"The Salish Sea is one of the earth's beautiful places, and bragging about it is something I am always doing," he said. "Taking it on as a full-time job is as good as life gets."

Burgoyne said even though they will always be available as a free download, there are future plans to publish the 2014 editions as coil-bound paper guidebooks.

"As wonderful as mobile devices are, some mariners are telling us they would like to have a paper guide on their boats, something they can toss about the cockpit and not worry too much about it getting wet," he said. "Since we intend to be fully supported by advertising, we will sell the printed guides for our cost of production and printing."